While I Was Away(81)

“Maybe you're just looking at it with new eyes,” she suggested. He didn't respond at first, then he squeezed her tightly.

“Maybe,” he finally sighed before leading them towards the car. “Maybe everything will be like this. My place, the hospital, all shiny and new. Maybe even new places, like your apartment, or ... wait, you still live with your boyfriend.”

Adele laughed and broke away from him so she could get into the passenger seat.

“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected him after he'd dropped behind the wheel. “And yes. But he knows about the dream, about my feelings for you. Or the you from my dreams, at least. He worries about me, he's protective, but he'll be happy for us.”

“Hrmph.”

She laughed at his grunt, then she turned to stare in her side view while they slowly drove away. She watched the cabin get smaller and smaller, until it finally disappeared behind the bend in the long driveway.

“I hope we come back soon,” she sighed, resting her forehead against the cool glass. She felt Jones' hand on her knee, and smiled when a bolt of electricity leapt between their touch.

“We will,” he promised. “Whenever your dream starts to fade or I start to lose myself to work, we'll come back. Every time. Because I think this place is a halfway point between the two worlds and we can always relive how we found each other here.”

Adele's smile spread into a grin. He'd voiced her exact same thoughts from earlier. Because of course he had, they were practically the same person. She covered his hand with her own.

“Always,” she agreed. “We'll always come back to the place where we found each other.”

He lifted their hands and kissed the back of hers.

“Always.”

*





“SO WAIT, WAIT,” ADELE laughed as she took an exit off the freeway and pulled into a gas station. They were on the outskirts of L.A. and riding on fumes. Besides that, Adele had taken over driving three hours ago and her butt was going numb. “She did what?”

“Jesus, don't make me repeat it,” Jones was laughing as well. She slowed down and brought the car to a stop when they reached an empty pump, then they both climbed out of the vehicle.

“She woke up your parents?” Adele still couldn't believe it. Jones groaned and nodded, moving to stand close to her while she filled the tank.

“Yup,” he said. “Here I am, trying to lose my virginity as quietly as possible, when my sister starts screaming bloody murder from down the hall. She woke up my parents and told them she could hear a ghost moaning. She told them she thought I must be possessed. They came bursting in, turning on all the lights, everyone starts screaming, I think I even started crying.”

Adele was crying, as well, bent over in half as she laughed.

“That sounds ...” she tried to console him, but couldn't for laughing.

“Fucking terrible? Yeah. Needless to say, I remained a virgin until I went away to college – super cool, right? Oh, and my 'girlfriend' never ever spoke to me again.”

“Maybe your sister really did think it was a ghost,” Adele tried to defend his older sister, but she couldn't keep a straight face.

“Oh, gullible sixteen year old me had the same thought, right up until she started cackling and calling me 'Boo'. Another nickname that stuck around until college, by the way.”

“I think I would've liked your sister,” Adele sighed. The pump stopped running and she put everything back to rights, shutting the gas cap before scurrying over to the passenger side of the car.

“You would've loved her. And she did actually feel bad when she found out it had been my first time. She'd assumed I'd lost it a year or so before. She actually set me up on a blind date in college to make up for it – this amazing redhead who blew my mind.”

“And she was finally the one, huh?”

“She was certainly something,” Jones laughed as he pulled them back onto the road. The on ramp to the freeway was right across from the station, so they were back on their way to the City of Angels in no time.

They'd spent the last seven hours just talking about anything and everything. Almost like two best friends getting reacquainted after a long time apart. She knew how his mind worked and how his heart beat and could practically hear his thoughts – but she didn't know the basic things about him yet, like how he'd lost his virginity, what his first job had been, or if he'd been good at sports.

So they'd covered a lot of ground between Donner Lake and Los Angeles. He'd played baseball all through school, had been a decent outfielder. Adele had played volleyball, had been good enough to receive a scholarship for it. They'd both given up band after their freshman years in high school, though he could still play the guitar and was halfway decent on a piano, something that didn't surprise her at all.

It was like a seven hour first date, all the fun of learning about someone and discovering how much you had in common, and getting all those butterflies and first-time warm fuzzies. But like you were doing it all with the person you'd been married to for fifty years.

Heartwarmingly comfortable and tantalizingly different, all at once.

I wish everyone could feel this way.

“Chip me,” he said as he put on the blinker. She took out some potato chips as they eased into the far left lane.